Defining a Schema

Scala classes are mapped to tables via instances of org.squeryl.Table[T],
that are grouped in a org.squeryl.Schema singleton.

Columns attributes

Columns and group of columns can have attributes declared via the on/declare syntax. Inside the example schema defined above, we could influence the DDL generation with the following declarations :

Of course, not all combinations of column attributes make sense, the valid combinations are :

non numeric column

numeric column

column group

indexed

Y

Y

Y

unique

Y

Y

Y

autoIncremented

N

Y

N

defaultsTo

Y

Y

N

“Note*: the uniqueness of KeyedEntity[].id columns is not overridable, it always gets declared as ‘primaryKey’

Schema generation (DDL)

Schema.create will connect to the database and create all tables, constraints, indexes, etc. While this is usefull for development phases, when a system has been in production long enough it is often more convenient to generate the schema, and evolve it manually.

Use Schema.printDdl to print your schema :

Mapping fields to Columns

Squeryl applies the principle of Convention over Configuration :
The class to table and field to column correspondence is determined
by name equivalence. It is possible to override a field’s column name
with the org.squeryl.annotations.Column annotations and the class’s
table name table with the org.squeryl.Schema.table[T](tableName:String)
method. as illustrated in the previous example.

The Column annotation can also be used to redefine default length
for String/varchar columns (and also for other types although it
should rarely be necessary).

Nullable columns are mapped with Option[] fields

The default (and strongly recommended) way of mapping nullable columns
to fields is with the Option[] type. If you use Squeryl to create
(or generate) your schema, all fields have a not null constraint,
and Option[] fields are nullable.

Important : If a class has an Option[] field, it becomes mandatory
to implement a zero argument constructor that initializes Option[] fields
with Some() instances (like the Book class in the example above).
Failing to do so will cause an exception to be thrown
when the table will be instantiated. The reason for this is that type erasures
imposed by the JVM prevents from reflecting on the Option[] type parameter.
This constraint could be relaxed in a future version by a compiler plugin
that would tell Squeryl the erased type information.

Correspondance of field types to database column types

Java/JDBC

Oracle

PostgreSql

DB2

MySql

H2

MS SQL

Derby

int

number

integer

int

int

int

int

integer

long

number

bigint

bigint

bigint

bigint

bigint

bigint

float

float

real

real

float

real

real

real

double

real

double precision

double

double

double

float

double

BigDecimal

decimal

numeric

decimal

decimal

decimal

decimal

decimal

String

varchar2(x)

varchar(x)

varchar(x)

varchar(x)

varchar(x)

varchar(x)

varchar(x)

Date

date

date

date

date

date

date

date

Timestamp

date

timestamp

timestamp

datetime

timestamp

datetime

timestamp

byte[]

blob

bytea

blob

blob

binary

varbinary

blob(1M)

boolean

number(1)

boolean

char(1)

boolean

boolean

bit

char(1)

UUID

char(36)

uuid

char(36)

char(36)

uuid

char(36)

char(36)

Enumerations

Enumerations are persisted by ‘int’ columns

Explicitely specifying the index values in Enumerations is strongly recomended

Classes with an Enumeration field require a zero arg constructor that gives a default value to all enumeration fields

Choosing between primitive or custom types

You will have to decide if your table objects will be mapped with primitive (Int. Long, Date, String etc.) or custom types. It’s a question of tradeoffs :

Primitive types

The main motivations for using primitive types are for performance and simplicity.
If a query returns N rows of objects with M fields primitive types
will cause the the garbage collector to handle of N objects, while same
query using custom types will cause the creation of N * M objects.

To use primitive types, simply import org.squeryl.PrimitiveTypeMode._
in the scope where database objects and queries are defined :

that’s all there is to it.

important : in PrimitiveTypes mode there can be ambiguities between numeric operators

When using org.squeryl.PrimitiveTypeMode, the compiler will treat an expression like the
one in the next example as a Boolean. The .~ function is needed to tell the compiler that the
left side is a node of TypedExpressionNode[Int] which will cause the whole expression to be a
LogicalBoolean which is what the where clause takes :

It is also needed in the following case :

This is required when using PrimitiveType mode. With custom types

there is no ambiguity, since custom types are not (AnyVal) numerics.

If you are using primitive types, you should use the following operators : div, times, plus, minus instead of /. *, +, -

Custom types

One motivation for using custom wrapper types is to allow fields
to carry meta data along with validation, as in the next example.

Custom field types must inherit one of the subtypes of CustomType in the package
org.squeryl.customtypes, and import the org.squeryl.customtypes.CustomTypesMode._
into the scope where statements are defined.